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Comment by teh_klev | Hacker News Reader

This chap's YouTube channel has a good number of videos about growing apples that are less well known:

https://www.youtube.com/user/1sustainablehedonist/videos

If you're based in the the UK, the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale grow quite a few different varieties of apple seedlings (and other fruits) and has a reasonable sized seed stock I think you can order from.

https://brogdaleonline.co.uk/

http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/index.php

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For what its worth these are unlikely to be from seed, as apples are very unlikely to produce fruit which matches the variety of the parent.

You're right, what's for sale are are rootstock trees. But I believe you can get access to seed stock as well.

Apples trees grown from seed actually do not match their parent - they are a genetic mix (just like us). What's more, they will most likely bear fruit that isn't pleasant to eat.

All the apple varieties you eat have been cultivated from a single original specimen, via cuttings or (more likely) grafting onto a convenient root stock.

So does that mean if you only have the seeds available you've effectively lost that variety? i.e. it's now extinct?

I feel this warrants more research for me.

Yes, essentially, if it hasn't otherwise been propagated. Also, the process for creating a new edible variety is fairly time and resource intensive, since it involves planting a lot of seeds and waiting a couple years to see if you get something worthwhile.

The story is also similar for rootstock. Apples are naturally a fairly large tree, which isn't convenient for harvesting. The rootstocks that apples are typically grafted onto are genetic variants that don't grow as large.

Thanks for the education :)

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